Josh Wambeke of Fell
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Sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands. Shortly after Denver’s Fell turned in the mastered tapes for Incoherent Lullabies to Australia’s Camera Obscura Records, doctors diagnosed the label’s founder, Tony Dale, with lymphoma. The prognosis forced the label into hibernation as he underwent treatment. Not ready to wait for its label to rebound, Fell headed back into the home studio and recorded another batch of songs, A Farewell To Echoes. Instead of shopping it around, the band started its own label, Vacant Songs, to release it. With Dale and Camera Obscura Records now back on its feet, Incoherent Lullabies is on track for an August release. Before that, though, A Farewell To Echoes brings the band’s densely recorded, post-shoegaze sound into circulation. In advance of the band's CD-release show tonight at Bender's Tavern, frontman Josh Wambeke talked with Decider about being the loudest quiet band in town.
Decider: Fell makes some heavy and moody music. Are you that serious in real life?
Josh Wambeke: I don’t think so. [Laughs.] I’ve been around so many musicians who take themselves so seriously. It just seems like they’re stripping the experience of having a good time away from it. Music is something I think people use to vent and release expression, and I take all that energy and I put it into my songs. As a person, I’m easygoing and like to joke around and have fun. We probably take our music seriously, but you can’t take yourself too seriously as a musician.
D: Was starting your own label a stopgap measure until Camera Obscura got back on its feet?
JW: We record so much material that we wanted to get something kind of legitimate going. I wanted to put together a record really quick so we could get some new material out there.
D: The dense layering you use doesn’t seem like something you randomly stumble onto in the practice space. How did you start experimenting with that sound?
JW: My uncle gave me a four-track and a crappy Yamaha drum machine, and I just started taking all these drum-machine loops and synthesizers and guitars and putting together all these demos. I ended up with about a hundred demos. It was pretty crazy. That’s kind of what inspired me to start doing Fell as more of my thing.
D: How much do recording techniques and studio work rather than traditional songwriting shape Fell’s songs?
JW: There’s a lot of post-production manipulation going on. I try not to use too many plug-ins. A lot of digital software stuff, I try to stay away from that. I’m more into trying to alter the effects before I record them. I think it’s important for them to be in the songs themselves. I definitely work really hard with textures and layering and trying to find out what would sound appropriate. I consider myself more of a recording guy, but we’ve actually probably played live more than we’ve recorded. I do a lot of recording and that’s what I’m more passionate about. But playing live is still something that I really enjoy.
D: String arrangements are pretty prevalent in the indie world right now. How do you avoid sounding like just another orchestrated rock outfit?
JW: Lately there are so many bands that use violins and mandolins and all sorts of interesting stuff, but I feel like sometimes it blends in. When you use those things in the kind of music we’re doing, you want to make it sound not like a cello at times. Michael Dewey is the cello player in Fell, and he utilizes it more like an extra guitar or something like that. I think he comes up with really interesting stuff to throw in there. I’m really interested in taking an instrument and seeing what you could make out of it, seeing however you can mic it or put it through an amp or an effect.
D: A lot of heaviness lurks around the edges of your songs. Some of it is even vaguely reminiscent of metal. Are you guys closet metal-heads?
JW: I am a bit. [Laughs.] I’m really into Neurosis. I think Isis’ first couple records I was really into, too. In high school, I listened to a lot of metal like Megadeth and Tool and so forth. Definitely I feel like there is some of that creeping into the music. When we play shows, we’re really loud and thick and heavy. On the record, it seems more to be laid-back.
